A Missouri man who spent 34 years in prison for a murder he did not commit is enjoying his first full day of freedom.
Christopher Dunn was released from prison Tuesday despite an 11th hour attempt by the state’s Attorney General to keep him behind bars.
The story goes back to 1991, when Dunn was 19 years old and convicted of first degree murder. In the years since, after two eyewitnesses recanted their testimony, efforts to free Dunn gained speed and culminated in a judge’s ruling on July 22nd of this year. It vacated Dunn’s sentence and ordered his immediate and swift release.
But just as freedom seemed hours away, Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed an appeal.
Because of it, Dunn had to stay behind bars for almost another week until the State Supreme Court ruled in his favor on Tuesday.
Dunn spoke with Scripps News on Wednesday about hearing that his release had been stayed.
“When I got to the front, after going through all of the changes and hassle, I had to sit there and overhear the warden make a statement over the telephone and ask someone on the other end ‘Are you sure? What do you want me to do?'” Dunn said. “The next thing you know, she turns around and stated that ‘Unfortunately you’re unable to be released today because the Missouri Supreme Court has issued a stay. So I need you to take those clothes off, and get back into your prison outfit, and return back to your cell.'”
“I felt my heart jump out of my body,” Dunn said. “I felt like my life had just ended right there. To be honest with you, I felt like a failure: Like I failed my wife, my family and everyone else who was waiting on me to come home because they all stood behind me all these years.”
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“‘None of this is Chris’ fault,'” Dunn’s wife Kira recalled thinking at the time. “What’s gone on with him for the last 34 years is not his fault, and it’s a tragedy. To sit here and hear him have that pain, that he’s somehow failed — he’s been an amazing father, husband, brother and son despite all the circumstances for the past 34 years.”
“The one thing that kept me going was I was not about to allow them to beat me,” Dunn said of his time and challenges in prison. “I’m from St. Louis. I was not about to allow them to just say my life wasn’t worth living or worth fighting for.”
Watch the full interview with Dunn and his wife Kira above.